China’s Premier Wen Jiabao walks past former Chongqing Municipality Communist Party Secretary Bo Xilai, front left, before delivering his speech during the opening ceremony of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on March 5.中國總理溫家寶三月五日在中國北京人民大會堂舉行的人大會議開幕典禮上，於致詞之前行經前重慶市委書記薄熙來（左前）。

Photo: Reuters照片：路透

China’s leadership faces a knotty choice in how to finish off fallen politician Bo Xilai without further damaging the Communist Party’s image: Purge him the old-fashioned way — in secret — or run him through a public trial.

Analysts and a veteran party member say leaders are leaning toward a trial, but either way the challenge is to prevent lurid allegations that Bo abused his power and that his wife was involved in the murder of a British businessman from upsetting a once-a-decade leadership transition just months away.

The leadership handover — in which President Hu Jintao and most others will cede their posts to Vice President Xi Jinping and a new group of leaders — will formally take place at a congress expected in the fall.

The leaders have “decided to wrap up Bo’s case as early as August so as to clear the biggest political uncertainty ahead of the congress,’’ Wang Xiangwei, the editor of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, who is thought to have close ties to the Chinese propaganda apparatus, wrote in an editorial.